Companies Scored On Disclosure Of Fracking Chemicals

Some oil and gas companies improved their chemical disclosure records last year, but 70% of those ranked in an annual scorecard that benchmarks public disclosures received failing marks. Scoring was based on publicly available disclosures of toxic chemicals, water and waste management, air emissions, community impacts, and management accountability. BHP Billiton, which has its headquarters in Melbourne, Australia, was the best-performing company for the second year in a row. Chesapeake Energy, ExxonMobil, and Chevron appeared in the bottom third of the list. “Companies must improve their local disclosures—their social license to operate is often determined by local concerns such as land and water use, air and water pollution, and nuisances such as noise, light pollution, traffic, and road damage,” says Danielle Fugere, president of As You Sow, one of the three environmental consulting firms that authored the scorecard. Disclosures, which are made to state regulators or the voluntary repository FracFocus, provide information about specialty chemicals added to millions of liters of water and injected underground during the process of hydraulic fracturing.